My brother-in-law has a factory that roasts and packages nuts. I spent the afternoon over there after driving his car down from the house for servicing. His mechanic was on site, having driven his van full of tools to the site.
The SUV had an annoying clunk in the back when hitting bumps. A variety of guesses had been made and the current idea was that the shocks were shot. The mechanic was in the middle of fixing another truck when I arrived, having stripped out the idler arm while lying on his back on a piece of cardboard. He stopped that and proceeded to dismantle the back quarter of the SUV. The shock assembly came out, the springs were compressed, and the shock removed from the assembly. At one point seven people were gathered around the one working guy, providing opinions and questions. It was too long, it was too short, it didn't compress right, it was maybe the wrong item, having been replaced before. After a while the shock went back on and my brother-in-law and I went for a test ride. Nothing had changed. The clunk was still there! Oh, well.
This reminded me of a country ride in the northeastern corner of Jamaica, looking for Reach Falls. We had clearly missed and then turned around to go back. We saw a bench (looked like the stop for a country bus) with at least six people on it. I stopped, rolled down the window, and asked whether they knew where Reach Falls was. Every one of them got up, started talking and gesticulating. Arms were waving, fingers were pointing, the whole crowd talking at once. It was at once a demonstration of the beauty of country Jamaica and amazingly funny. We finally found our way to the falls, though, with their help.
The mechanic had by then finished the other car's idler arm. I took off for the house.
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